Sherlock's American Vacation
by the other ghost girl
Summary: After successfully faking his death, Sherlock cuts off all communication with everyone in the know and goes to America to track down Moran, unfortunately he falls off the wagon when the trail goes cold, and starts falling back into some bad habits. Eventually he ends up at Bobby's while he figures things out and gets clean. Things go as well as you'd expect.


Dean and Sam had been looking for a vampire coven in Detroit. They'd apparently been upping their recruiting numbers and body count ever since the stock market crashed and the city started going to hell. They were mostly picking off the homeless people and drifters that were sqauting in some of the abandoned houses at the moment, but had started working on some of the poor schmucks who wanted to renovate some of the nicer ruins.

They were hesitant to go back to that area after their last experience with Detroit, but eventually gave in after a couple of hunters from the surrounding areas started reporting that the clan had gotten so big it was starting to spread out of it's original territory and into surrounding cities. One of the hunters who had been working on the case told them that they should check out an abandoned church that the unofficial leader of Detroit's homeless population had set up shop in.

It wasn't a very hard place to find, but once they got there, it was pretty hard to get into. There was a ton of twitchy looking homeless people hanging around outside armed with everything from small knives and hatchets to a freaking broad sword, and they didn't take too kindly to having a pair of well muscled men pull up to their home in a classic car. However, after a bit persuasion (mainly in the form of a batch of Garth's fresh baked cookies and a ton of sandwiches) and the assurance that they were not cops they relented to letting them pass.

Then something strange happened. One of the younger and brighter looking homeless ( a sixteen year old girl whom Sam guessed was a runaway) asked if they were the hunters that that Mr. Altamont had said were going to take care of the monsters. Sam and Dean just thought that the hunter from the area had warned Altamont that they were coming, shrugged to themselves, and said yes.

This got a good reaction from the huge group, who proceeded to celebrate, and attempt to thank each of them personally. The girl, whose name turned out to be Abby, said that she'd keep an eye on their car so that some of the more desperate members wouldn't get the wrong idea (something that Dean was conflicted on to say the least) and told them that they could find Altamont in the church's Sanctuary, and talk to him there. She then mumbled something along the lines of "hopefully you won't have to wait for him to sober up first" under her breath.

Upon entering the church, they were almost knocked over by a powerful smell, which was much different from the "homeless people living in their own filth and not bathing for years" smell they'd been expecting. After a couple minutes of thought, they recognized it as a mixture of skunk spray, cabbage, saffron and trillium that was apparently fueling a fire that was burning in a pit in the center of the worship area, as well as a couple of tubs of vick's vapour rub and vinegar that had apparently been rubbed on the walls.

They noticed the distinct lack of needles littering the place, and noted there were what appeared to be quite a couple of rubbish bins with bio hazard symbols hastily drawn on in permanent markers in along the walls. As they got closer to the sanctuary they noticed one placed in front of the altar like some sort of strange offering.

Once they actually looked behind the altar, they were surprised at what, or rather, who they saw.

At first they didn't recognize "Altamont" as he looked a heck of a lot rougher, and, if possible, thinner, than when they first met him; and the fact that he was wearing a hoodie and a pair of ratty old jeans instead of something a bit more...business casual didn't help matters.

Dean swore a little under his breath while Sam just stared silently for a few minutes.

Then Dean cleared his throat.

The figure jumped a little like he was startled, at first, his bright blue eyes were bleary and unfocused further enhancing the contrast between the last time they'd seen him, and the broken man they saw now.

Suddenly the man's gaze sharpened, and his entire body seemed to perk up a little, almost like his brain had taken a little longer than usual to finally boot up.

He grinned, winced, then stood and straightened himself up, apparently trying to look as presentable as possible given the current circumstances.

"Sam and Dean Winchester, I might have known they'd send you"


End file.
